“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Friday, August 31, 2007

Want a Nine Year Old Wife? Move to Iraq.

"The constitution ( of Iraq) says that Islamic Sharia law is the guiding legal principle. In practice, this means that women are losing many of their social privileges. It has, for example, become legal for an adult man to marry a nine-year-old girl, something that used to happen only in secret among local tribes.

For a long time, Iraqi women were among the most modern in the Middle East: highly educated, often working outside the home and dressed according to the latest fashion. Four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, they have lost most of their liberties, and both Muslim and Christian women risk their lives just walking the streets without a veil.After the US-led invasion, President George W Bush and his wife Laura emphasised that the lives of Iraqi women would improve. No more torture and executions of political activists and dissenters, no more palaces of horrors where Saddam's son Uday held and raped young virgins.

Losing groundBut women's rights activist and aid worker Yannar Mohammed says that in reality Iraqi women are losing more ground every day. She does not want to trivialise Saddam Hussein's atrocities, but argues that Iraqi women have far less rights today than they did under the former dictator. Not just because of the permanent threat of shootings, bomb attacks, kidnappings or rape, but mainly as the result of al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups taking control of most of urban Iraq. Speaking on the phone from Iraq, Yannar Mohammed says women are forced to live 'in a black box'."Women are no longer allowed to wear the modern clothes that they used to wear in the eighties and nineties. First they were forced to put on the veil, and then their dresses had to become longer. And especially in the last months of this year in many suburbs a woman is not allowed to show any skin anymore. She has to wear thick stockings, sometimes two layers and gloves."Under Saddam Hussein, too, there were women who chose to wear headscarves, but abayas (long black dresses) or face-covering niqabs were rare. Women were highly educated and held all kinds of jobs, including posts as teachers, doctors and politicians.Extremist intimidationAs early as 2003, shortly after the US invasion, UN aid workers warned about religious extremists intimidating women and girls and forcing them to wear headscarves. The UN aid workers said that radical Sunni and Shi'ite factions were taking advantage of the instability created by the invasion. In addition, the organisation reported an increase in the number of rapes in Iraq. A report from the Dutch foreign ministry in 2004 states: "Reports from the south, Baghdad and Mosul indicate increasing pressure on women to wear the veil."Local NGOs and Amnesty International report that acts against women are becoming more aggressive with each passing year. Islamist militias regularly distribute leaflets warning women to stay at home 'where good women belong'. Television viewers are bombarded with dozens of Islamist satellite channels. In their programming, all women wear veils and praise is lavished on stay-at-home mothers with numerous children.Verbal abuse and worseStudents attending university are verbally abused as they enter the gates and Islamist groups are putting pressure on the universities to create at least separate lecture halls for female students. Women who drive a car or work as a doctor, journalist, activist, aid worker or lawyer receive death threats over the phone, via e-mail and on the streets. If they insist on practising their profession or refuse to go home to change their clothes they will be subject to verbal abuse if they are lucky, but more and more often they are beaten up or shot dead in the street.However, Iraqi member of parliament Maysoon al-Damluji points out that the 2005 constitution actually gave women more rights:"For instance in the case of travel, a woman had to have a father, a parent a husband to travel with her. This no longer exists; a woman can travel freely without a guardian. Theoretically it is better but in practice not."

ShamShe also points to the fact that 25 percent of the country's MPs are women. But women's rights activists like Yannar Mohammed - who earlier this year won the prestigious Eleanor Roosevelt Global Women's Right Award - say that the large number of woman MPs is a sham. Local aid organisations and Amnesty International agree.

These organisations are also highly critical of the new constitution and the predominantly Islamic government which reportedly does little for women. The constitution says that Islamic Sharia law is the guiding legal principle. In practice, this means that women are losing many of their social privileges. It has, for example, become legal for an adult man to marry a nine-year-old girl, something that used to happen only in secret among local tribes.

Again, a US approved Constitution of an Islamic State comes back to bite US goals in the butt.

The Afghanis were going to execute that Christian convert, remember? That they did not, a sure sign of success? Fellow had to exile himself, after being declared insane. But, at least, he was not executed, another success for US foreign policy.

In both cases, Iraq and Afghanistan, the liberation has gone so well. Freedom and liberty has been embraced and religious and ethnic diversity exaulted, before the secular alter of Constitutions, not worth the paper they're written on.

Both Constitutions giving proof, rejected by the US projectionists, that the US is not involved in a "Clash of Civilizations", nor a War with Islam. The mussulmen are secure in the Islamo-fascist enclaves.

This is the point at which, as a good conservative, I should declare that this assessment of Vietnam is long overdue. And it is (although why the White House speechwriters brought in a quotation from Graham Greene -- a Reagan-hating, Castro-admiring, Kim Philby-defending leftist -- I'll never know). But that doesn't mean the Southeast Asian analogy -- basically, we can't let the Iraqi people down as we did the South Vietnamese -- is right.

Why? Well, for starters, South Vietnamese didn't kill American troops, didn't booby-trap buildings and towns, didn't turn temples into armed camps, didn't teach their young to throw rocks at GIs. To my knowledge, when training South Vietnamese army and police, American advisors didn't require body armor (not to mention armed U.S. guards) to ensure their survival. And South Vietnamese leaders weren't -- while Americans were fighting on South Vietnam's behalf -- eagerly courting American enemies, as, for example, Prime Minister al-Maliki seems to do every week with junkets to Iran and Syria. Where next, North Korea?

This glossed-over distinction accounts for my uneasy reaction to the president's exhortation to "stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour." Which "Iraqis"? Sunnis and Shi'ites eradicating Iraq's remnant Christian population? Sunni bombers whose hatred of Shi'ites (fleetingly?) transcends their hatred of Americans? Agents of Iran? Agents of al Qaeda? Proponents of Hezbollah? Forgive me if I fail to be stirred by the president's call.

This isn't to suggest there aren't strategic imperatives in the Mesopotamian theater, but they have less to do with "the Iraqi people" than with suppressing Iran's offensive capabilities, Syria's expansionist aims, Saudi Arabian support for creeping Shariah, and other jihadist threats unaddressed by our efforts in Iraq.

Could it be that our military has other, more vital missions ahead? No, our strategic thinkers say, better to gloss over such things. Just like the president did when he blithely equated our limited war effort to transform post-Saddam Iraq with the total war effort that democratized Imperial Japan after World War II. There are few similarities, because there is no correlation between limited war and total war.

How can there be? The utter devastation of Japan 1.27 million Japanese soldiers killed in battle -- another 670,000 Japanese civilians killed in air raids -- was such that when Gen. Douglas MacArthur instructed Japanese military commanders to order their men to disarm, 250,000 Japanese soldiers complied, right down to their Samurai swords. This has nothing to do with the American experience in Iraq, which, of course, remains plagued by armed militias.

Another result of total victory was that the Japanese Emperor admitted to his people that he wasn't divine. This would be akin to Shi'ite leader Ali al-Sistani declaring Mohammed wasn't divine. After all that, little wonder Gen. MacArthur could write up a decent constitution for Japan -- as opposed to the Shariah-supreme constitution we sponsored in Iraq.

A more frank, comprehensive-more grown-up assessment of the historical record would offer very different lessons from the ones Mr. Bush is teaching. It comes down to this: As World War II ended, we stopped being total warriors. In the 60-plus years since, we have become limited warriors. Our leadership, political and military, left and right, should recognize the difference.

Diana West is the author of the "The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization."

The Cold War and the post-Cold War period spawned an endless multitude of treaties and organizations (UN, NATO, EU, APEC, G7, WTO, NAFTA, ASEAN, OAS, IAEA, NSG, PSI, etc., etc.) that became the language of how American diplomacy was organized and who American government leaders talked to.

This century’s “war amongst the people” has made that language and nearly a century of American diplomatic instruction obsolete.

Better speed up the process, Mr Bush is running out of time to rebuild the UN agencies, then act.

NahnCee said... I just finished a biography of Gertrude Bell, who helped Lawrence of Arabia and the Brits put together the country of Iraq after WW1. When Iraqi's bleat about their long rich history, do they realize that their country just started in 1917 or thereabouts?

The interesting thing to me was reading time and again of Gertrude and her colonial compatriots, making a comparison of what they were trying to accomplish in Iraq after WW1, and what we’re trying to accomplish there now.

You can just about tick off a checklist, item by item, of what the issues were then and what they are now, and damned if they aren’t exactly the same thing. The introduction of democracy vs. tribal law – check. Tribal violence being held in check by Western troops – check. Iraq costing the Brits too damned much money to keep supporting them, and Churchill *really* wanting to pull out – check. A fear of genocide if the Brits were to leave – check. The Turks killing off Kurds and generally being jerks along the northern border – check.

The only thing missing in the bloody sweaty potpourri is current Iraqi obsession with electricity and air conditioning now, which they didn’t have then.

I hate it that everything we’re trying to do now was done before. There's something really annoying about being asked to recreate the wheel again ... and again ... and again, because the people you give the wheel to are too stupid or lazy or greedy to take care of it on their own.

What makes us in the West think that the lessons we're teaching - which are exactly the very same lessons as the Brits taught in 1920 -- will sink in and take hold this time? Or that Iraqi's and Arabs are worth the time and the repeated efforts.

I say 'their instruments', because though they may hold American Passports, or British Passports, or Israeli Passports, or German Passports, or French Passports, etc., they are neither American, nor British, nor Israeli, nor German, nor French, etc.

I call it 'war', because that's what it is. It's the imposition of a political diktat that is foreign and antithetic to the local nationalist interest.

The simple answer is that Goklany's account leaves out too much that matters and pretends that incredibly complex phenomena can be explained away with a few catch phrases. In its overly sanguine and simplistic take on globalization, regulation, and the role of state and economic power, The Improving State of the World is symptomatic of what has become, in the eyes of many, a quintessentially American point of view -- a view according to which the task of creating a better world can ultimately be boiled down to the motto of the Wall Street Journal editorial page: "free markets and free people."---What is missing from The Improving State of the World, in the end, is a sense of just how complex societies and economies really are. Paradoxically, for a book dedicated to celebrating the enormous progress the world has made in the past two decades, it does not sufficiently acknowledge just how miraculous the success of the West and Japan has been and how far from assured it is that the rest of the world will enjoy anything like it.

The experience of the last two decades has had a chastening effect on the expectations of many of globalization's most ardent advocates -- even those in places such as the International Monetary Fund. Goklany, apparently, has remained immune.

Again, the point is not to return to the bad old days of protectionism and import-substitution industrialization. The point, rather, is that we simply know a lot less than we thought we did.---The fact that every country's experience is different does not mean that there are not deeper truths to be uncovered by looking at the experience of the world as a whole. But the truths thus far uncovered are relatively few in number and often limited in impact. So, yes, free trade is a good thing, subsidies to agriculture and official corruption are bad things, and so on. And policymakers should be aggressive in implementing those practices and policies that there is a good reason to think will work. But they also need to be cautious about taking theoretical pronouncements for reality, and they should be pragmatists rather than evangelists. After decades of misplaced certainty, it may be time to recognize the limits of our own knowledge -- at least if we want the state of the world to continue improving.

You're welcome.some new commenter at BC mentioned his name.---"Just about everyone living today is the beneficiary of what can almost certainly be called the single most consequential development in human history -- namely, the onset of industrialization. As the economic historian Angus Maddison has shown in a series of studies of economic development over the past two millennia, human economies grew very little, if at all, for most of human history. Between 1000 and 1820 or so, Maddison estimates, annual economic growth was around 0.05 percent a year -- which meant that living standards improved incredibly slowly and that people living in 1800 were only mildly better off than people living in 1000. But sometime around 1820, that all began to change. Between 1820 and today, world per capita real income grew 20 times as fast as it did in the previous eight centuries." ---Industrialization,AMERICAN INGENUITY,and OIL!Rufus's and Charles' possible substitutes notwithstanding.

In a thread that was discussing how the IAEA was being intimidated or manipulated and how the US, France and England would have to go to "Plan B", as concerned Iran

While, Mr doug, that litney was quoted from westhawk's previous thread, of the archaic remedies of diplomacy in the 20th century, in this new millenium.

I thought it funny, that in one thread the levers were described negatively, in the next, how the US was so dependent upon them.

The IAEA being the Non Proliferation's Treaty judge and jury. That if the IAEA decided that Iran was in compliance with the Treaty, they were. No matter what any other State believed to be the case.

In fact, even the Security Council was subservient to the IAEA in that regard. If the Security Council were to over rule the IAEA, it invalidates the letter of the Treaty.Which would leave Iran free of any "Treaty obligations".

The solution, to reconstitute the IAEA, with new deciders, that would run into prolems, both with Russia and China, as well as timelines. If Mr Bush wanted to settle the Iranian issue while he was in office, within the "International legal framework".

Or Mr Bush would have to abandon the UN framework, which no "Boner" in good standing would do.

AlBobAl,The Frigging HI Supremes have rule the Fairy must get an EIS (enviro impact statement)Despite the fact that no other carrier ever had to.---Paper says up to a 3 yr wait.Death Knell for most businesses, we shall see.---I will find a link I read about the thugs in Kauai that "forced" the Coast Gaurd to Surrender.

"Or Mr Bush would have to abandon the UN framework, which no "Boner" in good standing would do. "---Given the Gravity of the situation, maybe even some Boners would."W," NEVER!Globalist Boner El Supremo Presidente.

There will not be pre-emption against Iran, the cost to China, Japan and India and thusly US are to high.

Even when balanced against threats to Israel. If Israel is attacked, by Iran, then a reaction could be contemplated by the World Community, but not pre-emption.

The Israel, they could not even successfully take on Hezzbollah and Suria, in a reactive mode. To think they'd act to preempt Iran, at the costs to US and the rest of the "Free market" economies, a projection of wishful fantasies, by those that advocate it or believe it in the works.

Syria was going to attack Israel during the summer, needed to be pre-empted, I remember reading in the Spring. It's September, they didn't, the staus que remains.

Their tanks, the WMD that escaped Iraq, ballistic rockets, suicide or kidnap squads and what ever other assets that those that were warning of the imminent Syrian attack were concerned with.

Stolen or blackmarket Ukrainian nukes, for all I know.

Point is, there was no need to pre-empt an attack that did not occur.

Vague threats of future destruction are not enough to start a war, or the US and Russia would have thrown down, when Nikita Kruschov said, in 1956:

"About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don't like us. don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not. history is on our side. We will bury you!".

Which they, obviously, did not do.Same applies to Iranian rhetoric on the world stage.

No, dRat. The attack is not from Syria. The attack is from Iran. To borrow an American Football analogy, Lebanon Gaza Syria were set up as peripheral blocking agents to aid the main attack. Though Israel has largely neutered their value as such, that doesn't mean that the Iranian attack isn't coming, or that the need to preempt Iran isn't there.

Doug, I had to get an environmental impact statement to develope an 800' street on land that had been in wheat for the last 110 years. Drainage? ok, I can understand that, but that issue had already been handled by my engineer, and the engineering office of the city. Any endangered species out there? Actually, no species out there at all, unless you count the mice, and moles.

The skinny is Craig will be resigning soon. All the inside jockeying has begun. If I didn't believe in our system, I'd say it's broke, as Bill Bradley said years ago. But I have gotten a charge out of this story. Poetic justice. Barney Frank says he's known Craig has been gay for years. I think Barney would know. I hope Craig's wife and her kids can find a new start out of this, maybe a silver lining for them. I bet they do too. She has never looked like the happiest of wives.

Because, hermanos y hermanas, if the US was truly serious about the threat that Iran could pose, our good friends of the UAE would not be holding back on this proposal:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is pressuring the United Arab Emirates to crack down on companies believed to be smuggling equipment to Iran to build explosive devices killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan...The UAE is among the world's largest shipping hubs for international commerce, and is located just across the narrow Strait of Hormuz from Iran. The countries have been trading partners for centuries. Much of Iran's trade flows through Dubai, which also ranked as the top export destination in the Middle East last year for American companies with $12 billion worth of goods....Dubai business executives have protested the U.S. pressure as an affront.

"The regulation of re-exports should be established by the UAE without the threat from the U.S.," the director general of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Hamad Buamim, wrote in a letter to the Bush administration obtained by the AP. "Only the UAE is able to judge the balance of concerns for re-export relative to national security against the risk of the trade moving to another re-export location."...The dispute highlights the conflicted relationship between the United States and the UAE. The administration considers the emirates a close ally, especially on military matters in the Middle East. But Dubai was forced last year to abandon plans for Dubai-based DP World to take over significant operations at six major U.S. seaports amid intense national criticism.

"They have been getting a lot of pressure from the U.S. government," said Arthur Shulman of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a nonprofit group that supports limiting shipments that could be used for nuclear weapons or missiles. "The UAE clearly have their own interests, and one of those interests is promoting trade and transshipments with few restrictions."

The companies and individuals the Bush administration identified as shipping electronic components and devices for explosive devices killing U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are: Al-Faris of the UAE; Ali Akbar Yahya of Dubai; Amir Mohammad Zahedi of the UAE; Sayed-Ali Hosseini of Dubai; Mayrow General Trading of Dubai; Micatic General Trading of Dubai; Majidco Micro Electronics of Dubai; Atlinx Electronics of Dubai; Micro Middle East Electronics of Dubai; F.N. Yaghmaei of Dubai; and H. Ghasir of Dubai.

No mandated divesture in those companies or the UAE, as that would upset the staus que. Not even mandated divisture in companies operating in Iran.

Not even stopping the $220 million USD subsidy to Iran or the $820 million USD in the pipeline from that action arm of US foreign policy, the World Bank.

There is no serious threat, to US, from Iran. Tasting the pudding of US inactions, proof enough.

His people say his intent is spun, by US and the enemies of Iran in Israel.

That those enemies exist, beyond doubt.

The IAEA is satisfied with Iranian compliance to the NPT.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has circulated his latest report to the upcoming meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors on the Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Happy as pigs in shit, the IAEA is.They, those independent UN operatives, set the Standards, not US, of compliance with the Treaty.ArticleIIIParagraphs 1 & 4 are plainly written to substantiate that conclusion.

Workplan to Resolve Outstanding Issues Released30 August 2007 UPDATE - 27 August 2007 | The Islamic Repulic of Iran has requested the IAEA Secretariat to release the text of a work plan agreed between Iran and the IAEA titled, "Understandings of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IAEA on the Modalities of Resolution of the Outstanding Issues."

Ahh, trish, the US claims the World Bank operations as being part of it's aid program in Latin America. Aid that we provide, but are not credited for, because the World Bank is funded, almost exclusively by US.

As published on 27 August 2007, the US lays claim to international funding by the World Bank, as part of our aid packages:

Clay Lowery, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, argues that the U.S. plays a larger role than reflected in its aid figures. The United States, for instance, drove Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank debt relief deals totaling $7.5 billion over the past three years in Latin America, he said.

"Who is the biggest financier of the IDB? The United States. Who is the biggest financier of the World Bank? The United States is. We don't count those," Lowery said. "We're basically engaged on a multilevel, multi-prong approach."

The World Bank, an action arm of US foreign policy, in Iran, or we'd divest.

If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, the former valuing peace and the other reveling in war, Hillary Rodham Clinton is a lot more like Mars than Venus. She loves war. Indeed, like a dolphin or a submarine, she can only define where she is or who she is by bouncing her sonar off her opponents. It is only in the crucible of conflict that she is truly alive and self-aware. Conflict is the principle which permits her to organize her life. Peacetime is an invitation to entropy.

Hillary Clinton’s handlers like to promote her image as an embattled warrior — a relentless foot soldier dedicated to the dual crusades of fighting for the exalted principles of goodness and light while simultaneously defeating the ever-present forces of darkness and evil. A modern-day Celtic warrior queen or Joan of Arc — that’s the spin on Hillary.

But in reality, Hillary’s favorite wars are much less lofty and much more self-centered and mean-spirited. Hillary emphatically comes from the “us versus them” school of American politics. Like Richard Nixon, the politician she so closely resembles, she sees the world in extraordinarily simple terms: there are those who agree with her and support her and then there’s the rest of the world. Those who don’t agree with her are bunched together and known collectively as “the enemy” — that vast right wing conspiracy that must be vilified, beaten, and destroyed ... whatever it takes.

To Hillary, this easily quantifiable adversary is unquestionably the source of all evil. Therefore, any means of obliterating them is acceptable. She thrives on identifying, assailing, and defeating them. Her hatred for this ubiquitous enemy is actually a source of enormous strength — it motivates her, energizes her, keeps her going and reminds her of her superiority.

Now she even claims that it is actually her experience in beating the right wing that makes her the most qualified democrat to be president. At the last debate, she touted her success:

“And I will say that for 15 years I have stood up against the right-wing machine, and I've come out stronger. So if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl."

Interestingly, she doesn’t exhibit the same passion for the real enemies of the U.S. — like Al Qaeda. You don’t hear her promising to take on, defeat, or destroy them. No, it’s the Republicans and the right wing that incite her wrath, sarcasm and rage.

And, she’s taken it even one step further. Her concerns about another terror attack on the U.S. are apparently rooted in fear. Not fear for American lives, but fear that the Republicans would benefit from an attack. According to Hillary:

“If certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world."

Everything, even the threat of losing innocent American lives, is secondary to her obsession with crushing the right wing and Republicans.

I don’t think a victory for her in November of ’08 will satiate her hunger for destroying her evil enemies. To the contrary, it will embolden her.

If she becomes president, look for a permanent “War Room” in th e White House. Hillary loves War Rooms. She started using them in the 1992 campaign in Arkansas to seek and destroy the women — like Gennifer Flowers — who had been involved with Bill and might embarrass him by telling the truth. That bunker used almost $100,000 of federal campaign funds to hire private detectives to intimidate Bill’s women. Then, she created her Health Care War Room in the White House — operating in secret to advance her virtuous cause and overpower her adversaries. After she resoundingly lost the health care reform issue, she closed down the War Room.

But in 1998, when the Monica Lewinsky story broke, Hillary created the biggest War Room ever. Its purpose was to destroy those who dared to support impeaching her husband. Describing the unfolding of the scandal, Hillary described it as a "battle” on The Today Show. After the private peccadilloes of the speaker and other members of the House Judiciary Committee were publicized in favored liberal organs and Monica Lewinsky was depicted as a stalker and a loser, Hillary was vindicated. Now she knows just how to deal with those who get in her way.

She’s not a warrior, she’s a bully.

Hillary--the hag from Hell. Descended for Goneril and Regan, she is. Would kill her own father. Would put Gloucester's eyes out , and make him 'sniff, sniff, sniff his way to Dover'.

No, trish, the money do not "go" to the UN, it passes on through, after expenses, of course.

If the US dissaproves of the final destination, it cuts the funding.This is a historical fact, as explained at Wiki:

In 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, the Bush Administration denied funding to UNFPA that had already been allocated by the U.S. Congress on the grounds that the UNFPA supported Chinese government programs which include forced abortions and sterilizations. In a letter from the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns to Congress, the administration said it had determined that UNFPA’s support for China’s population programme “facilitates (its) government’s coercive abortion programme”, thus violating a 20-year-old law that bans the use of United States aid to finance or support abortions overseas.

If Mr Bush would cut off funding for abortions in China, through the UN, he could cut funding for construction projects in Iran, through the World Bank.

Panama Pensionado Requirements – One must be receiving a pension for life of at least $500 per month. This goes up by $100 per month for each dependent brought in under the program. The pension should be from a reputable source like a publicly traded major corporation pension fund or from a government agency. Usually a letter from the pension granting fund is required and a few bank statements showing the deposit can be helpful. If one is receiving these retirement benefits early in life say as the result of military disability this is fine. Pensions from non-public, small corporations will be difficult to prove and this is not going to be successful.

I'm allergic to bees, Rat. They probably got killer bees down there. Do you know? I'm thinking of following my wife to exile in Canada, am checking out Australia. Maybe the lost son returns to Sweden, but they got all those muzzies, and I'm too old to learn a new language.

oh, ok, I see The World Bank is investing 220 million in Iran and not the US. The way you write about it, it is as if the US and the World Bank were one and the same thing with all of the World Banks funding coming from the US.

Iraq is one hell of a mess, for sure. It's a hard argument to make to say it's better off than under Saddam, at least right now. Not only the women, but the religious minorities. The Christians are really getting it. Iraq had about eight Jews, I read. Long ago gone to hiding, or hopefully, got out.

Directly from the US, to the World BankLThe United States remains the top investor in the World Bank, contributing $950 million in 2006 and $940 million this year. In June the House of Representatives approved another $950 million. Meanwhile, the bank will disburse $220 million to Iran this year, with more than $870 million in the pipeline for 2008, 2009 and 2010.

While the US pressures the UAE to shut down companies doing business with Iran. The hypocricy is blantant. As Clay Lowery, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, argues ... the U.S. plays a larger role than reflected in its aid figures ......Who is the biggest financier of the World Bank? The United States is. We don't count those," Lowery said. "We're basically engaged on a multilevel, multi-prong approach."

As Mr Lowrey states, the US should be credited with those World Bank investments and loans. If it is true in Latin America, it is true in Iran.

Mr Lowrey, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, is speaking the truth. It is our money flowing to the World Bank's clients.

If it is good enough for the UAE to be pressured into blacklisting companies, it's good enough for US to stop the World Bank, from fungible funding of EFPs in Iraq.

Or Iran is not a real threat, but a strawman for US interference in foreign lands.

The World Bank is not an arm of the US government. We may be its largest contributor but we are by no means its only contributor. What goes to Iran is a relatively small portion of the total World Bank budget and it would not be in our interest to scuttle the Bank over a relatively small investment in Iran.

In 2006, ash, the total monies raised, through world-wide debt offerings by the World Bank, $12 to 15 billion USD.The US contributed $1 billion (aprox) USD. The US will spend that $15 billion, in Iraq, in one month.

We could fund all the useful, to US, World Bank projects, directly and be better off.

But that is beside the point.The US funds those that subsidize the Iranians, who kill US troops. While protesting that companies in the UAE do business with Iranians.

That is the issue.The threat the Iranians really pose. If the lives of US military personnel are less important than the World Bank's efforts, let US make that clear to all the taxpayers of the United States.

Even 1 dollar is to great a subsidy to give those that fund EFPs aimed at US troops. No matter how the money is funnelled to them.

There is no "greater good" we could not fund, directly, as an extension of US soft power.

All the World Bank's efforts, combined, is only one month's worth of the Iraq Adventure's cash flow.

To claim a fanciful solution to a real problem, it just shows the lack of conncern you have for the lives of US troops in the field.

Even if the US were to leave Iraq, which it is not going to do, soon, it is not in the best, vital, interests of the US to fund Iranian projects, while Iran is a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Not for a minute.

You just do want to admit that, like you, Mr Bush believes that the International Community, the UN and its' attendants are more important than the lives of US military personnel. Let alone the lives and well being of the people of Iraq.

That is the crux of the matter. The realities of the priorities.

The continued "success" of the UN and its' associated efforts is the primary driver of US foreign policy. Not the vital interests of the US and its' citizens.

Not even the lives of those citizens in the military are of more concern than the continuation of the New World Order. Not the War on Terror, nor any other of the jingoistic or pacifistic rhetoric from the DC politicos of either party can displace the supremecy of the UN in US policies.

Brick upon brick, the one world project must move forward, unremarked upon by all the paid pundits, on either side of the aisle.

Mr Craig's wide stance being the only issue that is above the fold through out the MSM.

Not a thing that really matters, in the real world. Though it has a certain entertainment value.

Mexican Trucks to start entering USA Saturday. Good luch to the Teamsters with the 9th Circus Court of Appeals.

The 9th Circus has halted field burning here on blue grass land. The farmers have burnt the blue grass after harvest forever. The universities have tried for years to figure out a chemical or other way of accomplishing that which the fire does--eliminate weeds and pests and clear the field and shock it back into growth. The farmers, the Idaho Legislature, the Governor, the Idaho Department of Agriculture, the Idaho Supreme Court all had come up with a workable monitored plan. BUT, the 9th Circus in San Francisco said no,no. Said it before and will say it again, the 9th is way too big, should be broken up. We have nothing in common with them here. Tyranny of the court, I call it.

If your sole concern was the protection of US soldier citizen lives taking them out of harms way would be the most effective. The EFP's would not be killing and maiming them at anywhere near the rate that they are in Iraq then if they were at home in the US.

The US is not funding projects in Iran. The World Bank is. True, the US supplies some funding to the World Bank and it has some influence on its investments.

You do love hyperbole there rat don't you. All that one world supremacy crap. Yes, there is more to the world then what the US finds interesting and no, not many, want the US to rule the world. Craigs wide stance may be all that is above the fold in the MSM you peruse but you might want to try looking beyond your borders to see what is above the fold there. You might be surprised that there is nary a mention of Senator Craig.

Sadr's apparent truce - now that is more interesting then the Republican penchant for dirty gay sex while espousing God and family values.

"At the reception after the debate, an old lady asked me how, if I were still in Congress, I would vote on proposing such an amendment. I replied that I would have voted against changing the First Amendment to allow Congress to fiddle with our free speech and legislate what we may say, to whom we can say it, and when in a campaign we may say it."

While I'm an ardent free speecher there does appear to be some problem associated between money, campaigns and the influence that money buys. We are rational human beings are we not?

We also tolerate limits on our free speech. Flashing a nipple at half time is absolutely verboten and is prosecuted to the full extent of the law free speech be damned. Cannot some compromise be found that the courts will allow much like they've allowed the banning of nipples (and other such provocative body parts) from the nations airwaves?

A rational human would expect something for the money. Elections are generally not a one off thing. GW went from gov'ner to the top job with much financing along the way. He and his party are beholden to the money for without it there is little chance of success. There is always another campaign coming up and money needed - you do what you can to keep the legislation from affecting my company and my company will do what it can to keep you in the legislature.

I've spent years outside the US, and I'm sure Senator Craig's posture while standing is a non-issue.

No, the lives of US military personnel are not the only issue of importance. If required I'd support losing thousands of them, as we have in the past and will, I'm sure, in the future.

Again you miss the point, ash.

Why should the US threaten sanctions on the UAE and not the World Bank?What is the difference in how the funding is recieved the Iranians?

The jingoists are beating the war drums, for political effect, while subsidizing the miscreants. If the arabs in Dubai are worthy of US sanction, why is the US not as well? Both are on the same course. Funding Iranian projects, of one type or another, sending fungible cash to terrorists.

Being a terrorist sponsor, once or twice removed is not a position the US should be in.

That you disagree with Clay Lowery, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, is okay with me, but he speaks for the Administration, claiming that the World Bank is an extension of US foreign policy.

Your position is unimportant, like me just another anonymous voice in the wilderness.

Mr Lowery speaks for the US, as a Federal authority, empowered by law. A major difference.

I tend to agree with Mr Lowery, the World Bank is not an independent, of US, entity. That it is also part of the UN's World Order, which was founded and is also funded by US, 25% of their budget, another reality.

Does the US have 25% of the world's poplation? No is the answer. Does China pay a proportional membership fee? No again.Does the US recieve 25% of the votes, in either the Security Council or the General Assembly? nope.

The US pays a disproportionate amount, because it is in its' percieved "best interests". Another reality.

The elites of the US, who I affectionately refer to as Skull & Boners, a secret fraternal society of which both Mr Bush and JFKerry are members, are on a march to a one world ideal. All togegther now.

The policy differences between the GOP and the Dems, not enough to lose sleep over, really.

The MSM, part of the game.

The entire "Establisnment" in Washington plays the same tune, just in different keys. If one strays to far, well you're not "Serious". The proof of this tasty pudding, US military bases in 100 countries and the list grows. Believe you me, they were all not established during the Bush 43 tenure. Not at all.

The reason for US being in Iraq, to defend UN Resolutions, the leaving will start when the UN can safely "move in" to manage the society. As you have often reccomended, ash.

The US is a global, imperial power, using the UN and its' associated minions as tools of empire. That you so whole heartedly support that, just shows how small the circle is. You and George W Bush, kissin' cousins of international breeding.

While nationalists are demonized, Socialists are held in high esteem.

One Worlders, open borders and diminished Sovereignty, for everyone but Global elitists.

That you think that World Government will hobble the US and the globalists within it, shows just how little you understand.

Even the ICC, your favorite multi-national institution, it's funded, 25%, by US while we hold ourselves exempt, and rightfully so.

"The World Bank is not an arm of the US government. We may be its largest contributor but we are by no means its only contributor. What goes to Iran is a relatively small portion of the total World Bank budget and it would not be in our interest to scuttle the Bank over a relatively small investment in Iran."

We'd rather keep the influence, though what we should do can be argued either way. There are always trade-offs.

"That you disagree with Clay Lowery, the U.S. Treasury Department's acting undersecretary for international affairs, is okay with me, but he speaks for the Administration, claiming that the World Bank is an extension of US foreign policy."

My reading of his opinion differs from yours. I believe he was simply asserting that the money sent to the world bank should be counted as 'foreign aid' thus boosting our total number and not putting our rich nation down near the bottom of 'foreign aid' contributors. I've no time to dig back to his actual words to support this contention.

I think if you examined the specific projects the World Bank is funding and the UAE stuff you would indeed find differences but I see you prefer a blanket condemnation Iran = Terrorist and thus steer all action accordingly. I presume you also feel it is time to pull out the nukes and end them Irans way.

And, yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you beleive the US and its citizens should act and be considered superior to all others on the planet.

The World Bank budget is peanut dough, $15 Billion per year, a month's worth of Iraq.

We could directly fund every good humanitarian cause, and get direct credit for it. Utilizing all of our soft power economic assets, rather than just the military.That you'd rather subsidize the Iranians, just to maintain the staus que, well that speaks for itself.

Why do you not call Mr Lowery, set him straight. He thinks much differently, his Federal paygrade, a bit higher than a housewife and mom.

Just not at the level of an acting undersecretary for international affairs.

No, it's your buddy, ash, that's the fraud.

I have advocated a phased withdrawal and real Sovereignty for Iraq. Done that for a couple, three years, now. Once it became obvious that the US was not going to go to war with the Islamo-fascists.

I do not think the US will or should "go hot" with conventional military force in Iran.

I am in favor of dealing death in Warizistan, on a larger scale than the US has, but that does not have to be done with conventional ground forces, either.

No, I think the US should use its' considerable economic strengths to further it's interests overseas.

Walking that line between doing nothing much and going to war.

I have no loyalty to Globalist structures that do not advance US interests and funding projects, of any type, in Iran do not further US interests. No matter what international cover story is used for the hide the funding.

As to posting articles that promote a larger war, there are not many of those any more.

Certainly none with a scenario that makes sense.

If these legal and nonviolent methods are beyond the pale, then war may become inevitable. A shame, really. A real shame, more for the Iranians, Japs, Indians and Chinese, than for US.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.